Dustbin Baby by Jacqueline Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

me tight or whirled me around or lumped me about on her hip. She’d sit me on her lap occasionally when I cried but she was as tense as a spring underneath her soft slippery skirt, and I soon slid off of my own accord.
    Daddy was into cuddles in a big way but I wasn’t sure I was keen on them from him. He loved playing bears with me, down on all fours and growling fit to bust. He was like a bear in real life. He could be fun, he could be friendly, but he could suddenly lose his temper and roar. I felt he could kill me with one swat. He even looked like a bear, with thick brown fuzzy curls and a big beard and hair all over his body, even on his back and shoulders. His legs were dark with it, leaving his feet as pale as plaice, though the hair sprouted again on top of his toes. He seemed proud of his hairiness, flaunting himself in brief trunks whenever we went to the beach.
    Mummy wore a swimming costume then, but with a sarong around her waist and a cardi knotted over her shoulders. I was very pale so she oiled me with sunscreen until I was as greasy as a bag of chips, and made me pull on long-sleeved T-shirts and a sunhat so big it rested on my nose.
    I wasn’t allowed ice-cream because Mummy didn’t want me to eat frozen germs. Hot dogs and hamburgers were forbidden when we went to funfairs because Mummy was wary of warmed-up germs too. She held me out at arm’s length over public lavatories so lurking germs had no chance of leaping up my bottom.
    Daddy did things differently. He bought me knickerbocker glories with whipped cream and crimson cherries. He took me on every ride in the funfair, even the big wheel, though my stomach turned over and then inside out and I was sick all the way down to the ground and some poor soul got horribly splattered. Daddy always roared with laughter when he told this tale. He called it his
sick
sick joke. Mummy always shuddered. She had a weak stomach and when I was sick or worse at home she heaved as she cleared it up, putting on a brand new pair of pink Marigold gloves each time and throwing them away in fastened plastic bags afterwards.
    I wondered if she felt she’d made a mistake adopting me. Maybe she secretly fancied fastening me into a big plastic bag and dumping me back in the dustbin where I belonged. Maybe I was wrong. She didn’t hug me tight but every night after she’d kissed the space above my cheek she’d whisper into the darkness, ‘I love you very much, April. You’ve changed our whole lives. You’ve made us so happy.’
    Mummy and Daddy didn’t
seem
happy. Mummy often sighed to herself, her face pained, her shoulders drooping. Sometimes she sighed so loudly she put her hand over her mouth apologetically, as if she were suffering from indigestion.
    Daddy suffered from real indigestion, forever burping and farting. Mummy ignored these eruptions and expected me to do the same. Daddy was often sick too. I thought he might be ill but as I got older I realized this only happened when he came home late. Daddy didn’t drink much at home but he sank pint after pint down at the pub. That was why he smelt so strange.
    Mummy didn’t nag him about it but she couldn’t stop her sighs. Daddy started stopping out half the night.
    I couldn’t understand why Mummy minded so. I liked it with Daddy out the way. I wanted Mummy all to myself. I wanted her to help me dress my Barbie dolls, to draw little girls and kittens and butterflies with my crayons, to thread red and green glass beads so I could wear ruby necklaces and emerald bracelets. Sometimes she did her best and put Barbie in her party dress and crayoned a cat family and decked me in jewellery. Other times she’d just sit sighing, and when she heard the door at last she’d jump up so suddenly that Barbie would land on her head and crayons and beads rolled over the carpet.
    One morning Daddy wasn’t back at breakfast and Mummy didn’t eat but drank